Lessons from a salesperson

Today, I reached out to my buddy Mike at work, asking him if he had could give me his perspective on what it means to be a salesperson. He readily agreed, and I jotted down some notes from my conversation with him which I am compiling here -

Know who you're talking to

Different people in an organization have different concerns and different pain points. What's important is that you contextualize your product/service in terms of the person or people you are talking to. 

For example - let's say you have developed a fancy new CMS that is a dozen times better than Company X's old Wordpress site. However, you can't walk into a presentation to the Marketing department of Company X and excitedly tell them how scalable and maintainable it is - they won't care. You need to tell the Marketing people how easy it is to update content and apply branding, just as you need to show off scalability and maintainability to the IT people.

For the various people working different roles, you're going to want to know beforehand what their pain points are with the status quo. And then, you must get them to admit to having these pain points. This helps you build trust, and trust is vital - people like to buy from those whom they trust.

Sell by telling stories

Ask your audience a question - get them to tell you their pain points. This is especially a good way to go about the first meeting with a potential client. Once they start talking, now you have to coddle them a little bit. Tell them how you've had other clients with similar problems. Don't say, "I can help you, and here's how -" instead, tell them a story. Say something like, "You know, we had another client who was facing the [...] problem, and we built them a [...] solution that helped them save [...]."

By citing other clients, you're helping the potential client feel better - they're not the only ones with problem X - you're making yourself more relatable to them, and you're still showing off your product/service.

After that, you can follow up with more specific questions.

Keep things open

At least at first. If you have a booth set up in a conference somewhere, or are engaging in that first, initial meeting, don't tell them the nitty-gritty details about your fantastic custom e-commerce solution. At best, they'll talk enthusiastically for a few minutes, and then regretfully tell you that the problem you're solving isn't high-priority for them at the moment.

You must keep things high-level. The problem with getting too far into the details is that the moment the potential client starts focusing on details, the pain points that you had worked so hard to bring up start slipping from their memory. You need to focus on those high-level pains, and present high-level solutions. 

Ask 'how/why' questions, not 'what' questions

This ties in with phrasing - how you say things. Don't ask them what CMS they use, ask they how their experience is with their current CMS. After you've discussed it a little bit, then you can ask lead them to tell you what CMS they are using. The reason for this is that How/Why questions are open-ended;  what questions are close-ended. Especially in the early stages, you always want to keep things open-ended.

WIIFM - What's In It For Me

In the end, it comes down to adding value to the client. There are two means of adding value - time and money. Everything else - no matter what the client sites - can be boiled down to one or both of these two. It helps if you have concrete figures that you can show the client, on what their return on investment would be if they invested in you.

Secondly, it is better to lead the client to the realization that you have the means of saving them time/money. This is a better approach then telling them outright - they will trust their own conclusions better than the conclusions you present.

People buy your passion

Get them excited about you. Share your vision, and how that can help them shape their vision. You want them to buy into your vision.

Silence isn't a bad thing

This is something I have a lot of trouble with - when a potential client is silent, they are thinking. Let the wheels turn - don't feel the need to fill in the seemingly awkward silence. When they feel the need to talk to you, they will.

Ask the right questions

You must lead and direct the discussion, but be careful to do so without appearing to dominate the potential client. You must be in control, and they must feel like they are in control.